HOUGH, John (1651-1743)

Lionized in the Whig tradition as a ‘freeman of England’ for facing the ‘tyranny’ of James II, Hough became an enduring Protestant icon for his role in the Magdalen College affair. Russell, Memoir, p. xxi. The incident propelled him into the political limelight where he combined the role of ‘gentleman and ... bishop’ for nearly 53 years with, it was claimed, remarkable affability (except of course towards Catholics).[R. Smalbroke], Some Account of the Right Reverend Dr John Hough, late Bishop of Worcester (1743), 11-12. Writing at the time of Hough’s marriage, Cary Gardiner remarked ‘a better natured good man I never heard of’ and that he was also ‘very handsome’ to boot. Hearne, unsurprisingly, was less complimentary. According to him Hough was ‘not famed for doing much good’; he saw Hough as a ‘nice carver’ careerist who sat back and enjoyed the benefits of ecclesiastical preferment for the remainder of his lengthy career. BL, Verney ms mic. M636/52, C. Gardiner to Sir J. Verney, 21 July 1702; Hearne’s Colls. i. 288, v. 169.

Nevertheless, although his local Whig friends promoted his appointment to the episcopal bench, he found himself on the side of the Tories on some questions, and while president of Magdalen, Hough was an early patron of Henry Sacheverell. Indeed, he has been seen as one of a number of ‘moderate high churchmen’ in the 1690s, who found themselves converted to ‘low Church-Whig’ in reaction to ‘highflying attacks’. Holmes, Trial of Sacheverell, 30-31. A detailed examination of Hough’s political life, however, is hampered by the accidental destruction in the early 19th-century of much of his episcopal correspondence. Russell, Memoir, xxviii.

Magdalen College

Hough was born in the city of London, his father a citizen descended from a family originally from Cheshire. Destined for the Church, he became a fellow of Magdalen, Oxford and in 1677, Hough became chaplain to the duke of Ormond. Ormond stayed at Magdalen that year as a guest of the then president, Henry Clerke, which seems to have resulted in the introduction. The connection may have led to Hough’s rooms being searched in 1679 during the Popish Plot investigations. Brockliss Magdalen Coll. Oxford, 42; Oxford DNB. In October 1682, while in Dublin with Ormond, he preached a sermon commemorating an Irish massacre in terms so offensive to Catholics that the Irish Catholic gentry determined to block Hough’s future career. Ormond thought otherwise and was reported to have declared that if anyone in England asked after his (the duke’s) religion they were to say ‘I am of Mr. Hough’s religion’. W.D. Macray, ‘Table-talk and papers of Bishop Hough’, Collectanea ii. ed. M. Burrows (Oxf. Hist. Soc. xvi), 391. Ormond’s patronage proved the more potent and four years later Hough was appointed to the Worcester chapter. CSP Dom. 1686-7, p. 47.

Already a known quantity as the chaplain of the Ormond, the chancellor of the University, Hough was elected president of Magdalen in April 1687 in preference to the king’s Catholic candidate, Anthony Farmer. HMC Ormond, n.s. vii. 357; Morrice, Entring Bk. iv. 13; CSP Dom. 1686-7, pp. 410-11; Cartwright Diary, 87-90. Within days, Hough entertained a ‘very dismal prospect’ of the likely outcome with only a faint hope that Ormond could repeat his repulsion of Catholic intruders from the Charterhouse. HMC Ormond, n.s. vii. 491. Although the college appealed successfully against the imposition of the unqualified Farmer (whose candidacy was thereafter dropped), in June the ecclesiastical commission also voided Hough’s election, leaving the college without a recognized head of house.

The college remained obdurate. Later that summer the king summoned representatives from Magdalen to him at Christ Church and harangued them for their disobedience. Hough ensured he was out of town for the occasion. With legal advice from his maternal uncle, Serjeant Edward Byrche, he persisted in his resistance, and a conference with William Penn at Windsor in early October failed to settle matters. On 21 Oct. a deputation of three members of the ecclesiastical commission (Sir Thomas Jenner^‡, Sir Robert Wright^‡ and Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester) arrived in Oxford and the following day, having failed to persuade Hough to resign, put him out as president. He was replaced with the ailing Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford. J.R. Bloxam, Magdalen Coll. and James II (Oxf. Hist. Soc. vi), 117-42; J. Wilmot, The life of the reverend John Hough, DD (1812), 22, 25-30; Brockliss Magdalen Coll. Oxford, 51-59; Morrice, Entring Bk. iv. 104, 114-15, 122. Cartwright, one of the king’s special visitors, regarded the college’s actions as tantamount to rebellion and advised Hough and the fellows that the king ‘had thorns enough in the crown’ without their adding to them. Sloane 3076, f. 2. According to one of the commissioners, the lord chief justice, Sir Robert Wright, Hough’s demeanour at the October meeting came close to inciting a riot. He was bound over for £1,000 to King’s Bench. Verney, ms mic. M636/42, H. Paman to Sir R.Verney, 25 Oct. 1687; Morrice, Entring Bk. iv. 144-5. Hough seems to have taken it all in his stride; on the same day that he was removed he dined with the countess of Ossory (Ormond’s daughter-in-law), enjoyed a bottle of Moselle and was subsequently bailed by the prominent London physician Walter Needham. Macray, ‘Table-talk’, 396-7, 413. Despite the king’s particular pique, Hough was discharged from King’s Bench on a technicality. HMC Ormond, n.s. vii. 495; HMC Downshire i. 279, 212; CSP Dom. 1687-9, pp. 89, 109. In July 1688 Hough was able to capitalize on his relations with the Butler family by giving the university early notice of Ormond’s death thereby enabling the authorities to move smartly to elect his heir, James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond, as chancellor, before the court had a chance to propose an unwelcome alternative. Three months later Hough was restored to the presidency (almost exactly a year to the day after his ejection). He celebrated with a dinner that has become an annual tradition. Seventeenth Century Oxford, 950; Oxford DNB.

Hough’s emblematic speech to the commissioners, refusing to relinquish his presidency or the keys to his lodgings, thereby forcing the royal commissioners to have the doors broken down, entered Whig historiography as being almost wholly responsible for outlawing the use of royal mandates in Church appointments. JBS, xx. 121; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 1, box 2, folder 70, J. Cooke to Poley, 28 Oct. 1687. In November 1689, the case was still being discussed in the Commons. Morrice Entring Bk. v. 234; Grey, ix. 388-404. After the brief episcopates of Samuel Parker and Timothy Hall, bishop of Oxford, Hough was recommended by Thomas Foley^‡ to the new king and to Hans Willem Bentinck, earl of Portland, as a man ‘at the height of his reputation’ as well as having ‘impeccable’ Anglican credentials. Morrice Entring Bk. v. 427; Eighteenth Century Oxford, 44. Hough also seems to have canvassed the support of another Worcestershire Member, Sir John Somers, the future Baron Somers, the solicitor-general. NYPL, Hardwicke mss 33, Charles to Joseph Yorke, 19 Sept. 1742 (copy). Unlike many of the clerical appointments made immediately after the Revolution, Hough was not one of those associated with John Tillotson, the future archbishop of Canterbury and Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and did not have extensive parochial experience or long service within the higher clergy. Nor was he a high-profile preacher. His network relied almost entirely on his Oxford contacts and included former colleagues and fellow students such as William Digby^‡, 5th Baron Digby [I]. Hough was later one of seven trustees named in the act of 1715 appointing persons to care for Digby’s mentally disturbed heir, John, and it was at Digby’s request that Hough composed the epitaph for John Digby, 3rd earl of Bristol. HP Commons, 1690-1715, iii. 881; Sherborne Castle, FAM/C30.

Bishop of Oxford, 1690-9

Hough was at his residence in Worcester in the spring of 1690 when the chapter of Christ Church, Oxford was directed to elect him bishop a few days after Hall’s death. HMC Ormond, n.s. viii. 28-29; CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 552. The royal assent and dispensation to hold in commendam the presidency of Magdalen (where he maintained a ‘tolerable claret and a hearty welcome’) was followed on 11 May 1690 by consecration at Fulham Palace by Henry Compton, bishop of London, William Beaw, bishop of Llandaff, William Lloyd, bishop of St Asaph, Peter Mews, bishop of Winchester, Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury and Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester. CSP Dom. 1690-1, pp. 2, 4, 10; HMC Ormond, n.s. viii. 28-29. One week before the end of the parliamentary session, on 16 May 1690 (the same day that he received his writ of summons), Hough took his seat in the House. PA, HL/PO/JO/19/1/320. In the course of 27 parliamentary sessions between 1690 and 1715, Hough attended all but three, but he was rarely present for more than half of all sittings. His frequent absence at the start of a session ensured that he was rarely named to the standing committees, but he did report occasionally from a number of select committees.

Hough attended the House on 2 Oct. 1690 for the first day of the new session and thereafter attended 68 per cent of sittings. On this occasion he was named to the standing committees for privileges, the journal and petitions and to 24 select committees. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. During the session, he was named by the king as a commissioner for settling Irish church preferments and was contacted by Nottingham with the names of suitable candidates. CSP Dom. 1690-1, pp. 158, 160. Active in the revolutionary church settlement in England (in the interval before the replacement of the non-jurors) Hough was appointed administrator for the diocese of Gloucester following the suspension of Robert Frampton, bishop of Gloucester. Glos. Archives P86/1 IN 4/1. He ensured that Magdalen fellows all took the oath of allegiance to the new monarchs and on 31 May 1691 assisted in the consecration of John Tillotson as archbishop of Canterbury. HMC Finch, iii. 301; Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 238.

In October 1691, Hough arrived at the House five days into the session, attended 63 per cent of sittings and was named to 27 select committees. On 27 Dec., he signed the episcopal petition to the king for a royal proclamation against impiety and vice. Add. 70015, f. 276. On 22 Feb. 1692 he was named a manager of the conference on the small tithes bill. Hough, who had made great show of protecting the constitutional rights of the university against James II, now used his vote in the lords to defend the parliamentary constitution. On 23 Feb. he was the only bishop of the seven peers (including Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester and Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury) to register his protest against the tack of a proviso onto the supply (poll tax) bill for the war against France. The proviso (to establish a commission of accounts) was, the protesters argued, both unparliamentary and prejudicial to the privilege of peers.

Hough remained at Westminster until the end of the session. He missed the first week of business of the session that assembled on 4 Nov. 1692, but having taken his place attended nearly 60 per cent of sittings and was named to 32 committees. He was present on 3 Dec. for the first reading of the bill to confirm the charters, liberties and privileges of the University of Oxford. On 23 Dec., Hough and James Bertie, earl of Abingdon, each informed the House that town and university had come to an agreement over the bill and moved that it be read. He was subsequently nominated to the committee overseeing the bill. Also on the 23rd, Hough registered his dissent against the order to reverse the judgment in the cause Leach v. Thompson.

Hough’s distance, at that time from Whig politics was evident when on 31 Dec. 1692 he voted with the majority (against the court and 17 of his fellow bishops) to commit the place bill. On 3 Jan. 1693 he was one of only four bishops who voted for passing the bill (with Thomas Sprat, bishop of Rochester, Jonathan Trelawny, bishop of Exeter and Thomas Watson, bishop of St Davids) and then registered his dissent against its rejection. HMC 7th Rep. 213. Their actions were explained by Hanoverian envoy Bonet as being, perhaps, the direct result of a harangue delivered by Burnet. Ranke, Hist. Eng. vi. 199-200. Hough was marked as a query on Ailesbury’s forecast for the divorce bill of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk. Although Hough was listed as in attendance on 2 Jan. 1693 for the reading of the bill, his name is not recorded on the division list and it is probable that he absented himself from the chamber or abstained. On 19 Jan. he registered his dissent (again with bishops Watson and Trelawny) against the resolution not to refer to the privileges committee consideration of the Lords’ amendments to the supply (land tax) bill. On 25 Jan. he voted against committing the Whig bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons (against Archbishop Tillotson). DWL, Stillingfleet transcripts, ms 201.38, f. 37. Three days later, he reported from the committee on Abraham Hinde’s estate bill.

According to the biographer of Bishop William Lloyd, Hough preached before the Lords on 30 Jan. 1693 but refused to print the sermon because it had pleased ‘no party. Hart, William Lloyd, 227. A similar story was told by Hough himself in later life with the elaboration that Hough had ‘managed matters so as to please no party’ and that it was Richard Lumley, earl of Scarbrough, and Portland who had come with the king’s order that it be printed, only for Hough to refuse the request. Macray, ‘Table-talk’, 398. He missed the last five weeks of business before the end of the session on 14 Mar. 1693 and there is again scant evidence as to his activity during the summer months. It is possible that he was in London for at least some of the time since he was listed as a Lenten preacher for 2 April. Verney ms mic. M636/46, list of preachers.

Hough attended the House for the first day of the November 1693 session. He attended one fifth of sittings and was named to the standing committees for privileges and the journal, but was not nominated to any select committees. On 23 Nov. his concern for the maintenance of existing constitutional privileges (whether in university, Parliament or establishment) was again evident when he protested (as one of six bishops out of ten dissentients) against the resolution that the House would not receive any petition for protecting servants of the crown. The resolution, the protestors argued, was an infringement of crown privileges. On 4 Dec., Hough was present when the House went into a committee of the whole on the triennial bill. According to Bishop Watson, Bishops Hough and Sprat were among those who had ‘gone off’, that is ceased to espouse the bill they had favoured in the previous session. HMC Hastings, ii. 233. On 16 Dec. 1693 Hough registered his proxy with Bishop Stillingfleet, and he did not return for the remaining four months of the session.

The early months of 1694 found Hough and the Magdalen fellows engaged in a dispute with the university over the appointment of the president of neighbouring Magdalen Hall. In an echo of Hough’s own experience under James II, the college attempted to foist its candidate on the hall in the face of considerable opposition. Although the visitor, Bishop Mews, ordered Hough and his colleagues to refrain from interfering they persisted and in June brought their case before the court of common pleas. The court found for the university and Magdalen College was forced to retreat. Brockliss, Magdalen College Oxford, 260.

Hough arrived at the House the following autumn, two weeks after the start of the session. He attended 63 per cent of sittings and was named to 22 select committees. On 22 Nov. 1694 he wrote to Thomas Turner, president of Corpus Christi college, how the sudden death of Tillotson ‘did wonderfully surprise’ him. Tillotson’s demise inevitably resulted in speculation as to his successor, with Hough noting that ‘one who understands very well how the wind sits at Court tells me he will lay a wager on’ Simon Patrick, bishop of Ely ‘against any other competitor: amongst whom (which you will wonder at) I do not find the Bishop of Worcester [Stillingfleet] so much as named’. Bodl. Rawl. Letters 91, f. 263.

Hough continued to attend the House sporadically until the end of April 1695, missing the last week of business. His primary concern, the University of Oxford, kept him occupied with a prevalent ‘spirit of Jacobitism’ and he invested considerable energy ensuring the university’s political quiescence. HMC Downshire, i. 509. Paradoxically, the conflict between his duties as bishop of Oxford and as president of Magdalen gradually eroded his position in the university. Eighteenth Century Oxford, 44. The 1695 election, though, saw much of the university eager to support the candidature of the new secretary of state, Sir William Trumbull^‡. Magdalen proved solid in its support for him and Hough may also have put pressure on Dean Aldrich of Christ Church to follow suit. As well as this he was also engaged with plans for a projected royal visit to Magdalen. CSP Dom. 1695, p. 95.

Oxford business delayed Hough’s return to Westminster and he arrived for the start of the new Parliament four weeks after the start of the session, taking the oaths on 18 Dec. 1695. He attended nearly 40 per cent of sittings and was named to 18 select committees. On 28 Jan. 1696 he informed a friend that on the previous day ‘with much struggling, we got the bill of small tithes to pass in the House of Lords; it will be of great benefit to poor vicars; but it was violently, and with very invidious arguments, opposed by some that would be thought the Church’s best friends’. Wilmot, Life of Hough, 143-4. On 6 Mar. he reported from the committee on the private bill concerning Sir Thomas Wagstaffe^‡. He last attended on 27 Mar., missing the last month of business up to the end of the session on 27 Apr. 1696.

Hough delayed returning to Westminster until five weeks after the start of the October 1696 session. He attended for 38 per cent of sittings and was named to 13 select committees. At a call of the House on 14 Nov. 1696, it had been noted that Hough should attend by the 23rd of that month; he arrived eventually three days after that, having been engaged in a visitation. Add. 70120, Nelson to Sir E. Harley, 14 Dec. 1696. On 23 Dec., following the third reading and debate on the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick^‡ bt, Hough voted with the court for the passage of the bill, so his delayed return seems not to have been caused by a desire to avoid voting on the matter. He missed the last four weeks of the parliamentary session, last attending on 23 Mar. 1697. By mid-April he was corresponding from Magdalen about patronage matters, and offering the hope that a peace abroad ‘would have smoothed our affairs at home’. Add. 28927, ff. 61-63. One of Hough’s students at Magdalen caused him particular difficulties. Henry Sacheverell had been ordained deacon by Hough in May 1695 but two years later was denied ordination to the priesthood by Bishop Lloyd on the grounds that his Latin was inadequate. Hough was forced to apologize to Lloyd for Sacheverell’s imperious behaviour at the interview. In his letter of June 1697 he also assured Lloyd that he would not ordain him ‘not only till your lordship has pardoned him, but till I am satisfied he so behaves himself as to deserve it’. Three months later Sacheverell was presented to Lloyd again, complete with a new recommendation from Hough, and this time the ordination proceeded as planned. Holmes, Trial of Sacheverell, 9-10; Glos. Archives, Lloyd Baker mss, D3549/2/2/1, no. 216.

At the House on 3 Dec. 1697 for the first day of the new session, Hough attended 27 per cent of sittings, was named to 14 select committees as well as to the standing committees for privileges and the journal. When the bill to prevent undue marriages for infants was brought into the Lords (possibly the bill on undue marriages for infants in the 1697-8 session), it was proposed that bishops sign the licences themselves, on pain of deprivation should the licence prove improper. It was possibly on 16 Dec. 1697 that the episcopal bench sat in stony silence while the bill was debated in a committee of the whole House until Francis Newport, earl of Bradford, probed Hough for the reason: Hough responded: ‘do you think that we shall ever sign any licences, when deprivation is to be the penalty of signing a wrong one?’ Macray, ‘Table-talk’, 395. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted to commit the bill to punish Charles Duncombe^‡ and registered his dissent when the vote was lost. He attended the session for the last time on 19 May, missing the last seven weeks of that Parliament.

Hough seems not to have played a major role at the time of the 1698 election for the Oxford university burgesses, though the Magdalen electors appear to have favoured electing Trumbull once more. Hough may have been preoccupied by a fellowship election in the college, in which his casting vote proved decisive. The high Tory dean of Christ Church, Henry Aldrich, thus carried the day at the parliamentary election with his own candidates, Sir Christopher Musgrave^‡, bt and Sir William Glynne^‡, bt, though the latter also seems to have been able to rely on some support in Magdalen. Bodl. Tanner 22, ff. 191-2; HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 486. Hough did not attend the late autumn 1698 session of Parliament until after the new year; in the course of the session he attended one third of sittings but was named to just one select committee. On 23 Jan. 1699, the bill for regulating printing was referred to a committee of the whole. Hough was missing from the attendance list that day, but may have been present in the chamber for what was the last business of the day. He wrote that evening to a colleague at Oxford that the bill had passed the committee but had been ‘reduced to one single article’, namely that

the names of the printer and author shall be given in to the Master and wardens of the [Stationers] Company and that if any person sells or publishes an exceptionable book he shall be punished as the author; it is likewise inserted that the universities shall have copies of all books, which is all the mention made of ’em.

He continued that the ‘bill for disbanding the army is to have its first reading tomorrow, but I cannot tell you beforehand what will be the fate on’t. Both sides begin to ferment and let the wind sit where it will I doubt we shall have a warm day of it’. Tanner 22, f. 149. He was duly listed as attending on the following day for the first reading of the supply bill providing for the disbandment, and on the 27th and 28th for the reading and committal of the bill. His concern to oppose any infringement against the constitution and proper parliamentary procedure again reared its head on 27 Apr. 1699 when he protested against the tacking of a proviso on Irish forfeitures to the disbanding bill on the grounds that it was unparliamentary. Hough was the only bishop out of nine dissentients to register his protest about the tack. He attended the House on the last day of the session, 4 May 1699, for the prorogation, and also the prorogations of 1 June and 13 July.

Coventry and Lichfield, 1699-1717

On 31 May 1699, Hough was released from an increasingly partisan and hostile Tory Oxford when the king sent out the directive for his translation to Lichfield and Coventry, though he retained for the time being the presidency of Magdalen. The appointment was confirmed by Thomas Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury, on 5 Aug. 1699 and Hough received his temporalities three days later. Eighteenth Century Oxford, 44; CSP Dom. 1699-1700, pp. 210, 240, 247, 388. Although one of Hough’s biographers claimed that the translation severed his connection with Oxford, it is clear that the Magdalen presidency ensured he retained more than a passing interest in university business. Russell, Memoir, xxvii. Shortly before his translation was confirmed, Hough was summoned to Lambeth to hear the latest stage of Bishop Watson’s disciplinary hearing. Hough was clearly reluctant to participate and hoped that this next episode ‘puts an end to that tedious and melancholy cause of which I have heard but too much already; however his grace must be obeyed’. Add. 28927, f. 108. He appears to have concurred with Tenison in Watson’s deprivation; Hough was reported as having expressed ‘a full persuasion’ of Watson’s guilt of simony, extortion and crimen falsi. LPL, ms 951/6; NLW, ms 14005E, f. 190; Bodl. Rawl. B 380, f. 191.

Despite translation to Lichfield at the start of August 1699 and having a permanent residence in London in Kensington Square, Hough had left for Oxford by mid-August, ‘in haste for a little fresh air and elbow room’. There he concentrated on catching up on financial affairs (not least the outstanding expenses for his translation). Add. 28884, f. 183. He was back at Westminster on 4 Dec. (three weeks after the session commenced, though the fourth sitting day since its opening) to take his seat for the first time as bishop of Lichfield. He attended 47 per cent of sittings and was named to five select committees. On a printed list, marked up after 10 July 1700, Hough was classed as a potential supporter of the new ministry, as opposed to a loyal follower of the Junto.

Hough attended the new Parliament for the first time on 24 Feb. 1701 and was present for nearly 37 per cent of all sittings; he was named to just four select committees. Having been ordered to preach a fast sermon on 4 Apr., Hough preached before the assembled Lords in the Abbey on the need for godliness in both religious and secular affairs. HEHL, HM 30659 (83); J. Hough, A Sermon Preached before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament … April the 4th, 1701 (1701). On 7 Apr. the House ordered that he should be thanked and the sermon printed. On 15 May Hough joined with Bishops Burnet and Patrick and James Gardiner, bishop of Lincoln, on the side of the impeached lords and against the new ministry when he supported ‘two questions about the dissolution of the last Parliament’. Bodl. Ballard 36, f. 6. On 17 June Hough voted to acquit Baron Somers, and on 23 June gave a similar vote in the case of Edward Russell, earl of Orford. He was also involved in the ecclesiastical case involving Edward Jones, bishop of St Asaph and sat with Tenison on 18 June when Jones was suspended. Bodl. Rawl. B 380, f. 211.

Hough was at Westminster for the start of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. He was named to the standing committee for privileges and to 17 other select committees, and attended for 51 per cent of sittings. On 16 May 1702, one of the proctors from his diocese, Dr. William Binckes, was censured by the House for preaching an offensive martyrdom sermon before the lower house of Convocation on 30 January. By suggesting that Charles I had suffered more than Christ, the Lords voted that his sermon had given ‘just scandal and offence to all Christian people’. Following a division, the House rejected the motion to burn the sermon. Instead, it was resolved to inform Hough (as his diocesan) of the censure. Although Hough was listed as in attendance on the 16 May, he missed the remainder of the session, which was prorogued on 25 May. One reason for this was his impending marriage; on 13 May Hough had taken out a licence to marry Lady Lettice Lee, a Staffordshire widow, whom he later described as ‘the dear companion’ of his life. Add. 4274, f. 307. The actual date of the marriage is unknown, but may have been shortly after the date on the licence for on 21 July 1702 it was reported to Sir John Verney^‡, the future Viscount Fermanagh [I] as a relatively recent event. Verney, ms mic. M636/52, C. Gardiner to Sir J. Verney, 21 July 1702. His wife was independently wealthy and she retained authority over her estate under their marriage settlement, Hough inheriting her estate after her death in 1722. PROB 11/726.

Hough took his seat in the first Parliament of Anne’s reign on the second day of the session, 21 Oct. 1702, and attended a little more than half of all sittings. He was named to the committee for privileges and to 16 select committees. On 3 Dec., after the second reading of the bill against occasional conformity, Hough (in company with John Sharp, archbishop of York, Bishop Compton and seven other bishops) voted against Somers’ amendment to the bill, to restrict its remit to those covered only by the Test Act. Nicolson, London Diaries, 137. Nonetheless, in January 1703 it was estimated by Nottingham that he would probably oppose the occasional conformity bill. On 16 Jan. Hough voted to adhere to the Lords’ (wrecking) amendment to the penalty clause, in opposition to many of the bishops he had sided with in December.

Hough was engaged in a variety of other business during the session. On 18 Dec. 1702 he reported from the committee on the private bill for John Williams, bishop of Chichester, a non-partisan issue. In contrast, on 13 Jan. 1703, the first reading of a bill on the navigability of the River Derwent elicited strong feelings on both sides of the House. Hough joined all the bishops present in favour of a second reading the bill. The bill’s opponents included William Cavendish^* [1404], duke of Devonshire. Nicolson, London Diaries, 168-9. On 19 Jan. 1703 Hough registered two protests against the passage of the ‘Prince’s bill’, namely the bill enabling the queen to settle a revenue the support of Prince George, duke of Cumberland, in case he survived her. Nicolson, London Diaries, 181-2. Hough then continued to attend the House sporadically until the penultimate day of the session at the end of February.

In November 1703, Hough was twice forecast by Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as an opponent of a new occasional conformity bill. He attended the session on the second day of business, attended 45 per cent of sittings, and was named to 11 select committees and to the committee for the journal. On 14 Dec. 1703, he voted against the occasional conformity bill, this time uniting with Tenison and 13 bishops against Archbishop Sharp and eight Tory bishops. On 20 Jan. 1704 he reported from the committee on the private bill concerning William Adams, a Northamptonshire cleric. He was present on the last day of the session on 3 April.

On 24 Oct. 1704 Hough attended the House for the first day of the new session; he was present thereafter on 48 per cent of sittings, was named to 21 select committees and to the committee for the Journal. One of the most contentious issues of the session was the Scottish Parliament’s act of security, regarded as ‘anti-English’ at Westminster. On 2 Nov., William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle noted that Hough was ‘earnest’ in calling for those who had advised its passage to attend, a position adopted by many Whigs as they sought to put pressure on from the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin, Baron Godolphin. Nicolson, London Diaries, 210-11, 218. Another controversial measure was the re-introduction of the occasional conformity bill early in December. Its expected introduction may explain why on 20 Nov. Hough received the proxy of William Talbot, bishop of Oxford (vacated on 17 Feb. 1705) and on the 22nd that of Edward Fowler, bishop of Gloucester (vacated at the end of the session). On 27 Feb. he was named to the committee to devise heads of a conference with the Commons regarding the Aylesbury men. He attended the last day of the session on 14 March. The following day, now pushed increasingly into the Whig camp by the actions of the highflying Tory clergy, he signed (with bishops Burnet, Williams, John Moore, bishop of Norwich and Richard Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough) the complaint against the proceedings of the lower house of Convocation advising them to ‘govern themselves by the constitution’. LPL, ms 934, f. 37.

Hough was at Westminster on 25 Oct. 1705, the first day of the new Parliament, to take the oaths, after which he attended 36 per cent of sittings, was named to the standing committees for privileges and the Journal and to 14 select committees. On 2 Nov. he attended a meeting of commissioners of Queen Anne’s Bounty in the morning and on 5 Nov. preached before the queen at St James’s. Nicolson, London Diaries, 297; J. Hough, A Sermon Preach’d before the Queen, at St James’s Chappel, on Nov. 5 1705 (1705). He again received the proxy of Bishop Talbot on 23 Nov. 1705. On 1 Dec. he was named to a Convocation committee (with Bishop Moore and Humphrey Humphreys, bishop of Hereford and William Wake, bishop of Lincoln) to consider the internal dispute regarding an address to the queen over the highfliers’ perceptions of danger to the Church. Sykes, William Wake, i. 122-4. Three days later, Bishops Wake and Williams visited him to discuss ‘what was fit to be done to prevent the increase of popery’. LPL, ms 1770 (Wake diary), f. 8. On 6 Dec. Hough spoke in the ‘Church in danger’ debate in the Lords immediately after Nottingham had outlined his fears of the Dissenting academies and the practice of occasional conformity. The danger, according to Hough, was ‘nearer home … in this House, and even upon this bench’ amongst those who portrayed the ‘low church’ bishops (including himself) as fanatics, ‘addicted to presbytery’. HJ, xix. 767. He maintained that the debate was focussing on entirely the ‘wrong topic’ by concentrating on ‘modish censures’ of the ministry and called for the debate to come back to the point in hand. Timberland, ii. 154-60; Nicolson, London Diaries, 323. On Christmas Day 1705 he joined an ‘abundance’ of people taking communion in Whitehall. Nicolson, London Diaries, 335.

Throughout the previous year Hough had also been concerned with his own private legislation regarding the size and economic status of the Lichfield chapter. On 18 Nov. 1704 he had dined at Lambeth with Nicolson, Lloyd and Burnet, explaining over dinner his intention to bring in a bill to reduce his 30 prebendaries to eight residentiary canons. Nicolson, London Diaries, 229. Hough’s Lichfield canons and deanery bill was subsequently introduced into the Commons by Henry Paget, the future Baron Burton and earl of Uxbridge, then knight of the shire for Staffordshire. During December 1705 and January 1706, Paget managed the bill through all its stages in the Commons. HP Commons, 1690-1715, v. 59. The bill was given its first reading in the Lords on 1 Feb. 1706. Three days later, Hough was involved in a disagreement with Burnet over the bill and on the 7th, he was pressed to delay its second reading; it was again postponed on the 11th. After committal the following day (Hough was nominated to the select committee), it was clear that objections raised by Burnet, Sunderland and Thomas Grey^* [1237], 2nd earl of Stamford, stemmed from their opposition to the dean, Dr. William Binckes, whose sermon had caused such offence in 1702, and who was now Prolocutor of the lower house of Convocation. They also insisted that the queen give formal consent to unite the living of Tattenhall (in the gift of the crown) with the deanery. After an early committee meeting on 22 Feb. when Thomas Herbert, 8th earl of Pembroke, provided the required consent, the bill was reported the same day by Rochester and subsequently passed the House. Nicolson, London Diaries, 371, 372, 375, 381-2. Hough attended for the prorogation on 19 Mar. 1706 and left London for the spring and summer months.

Hough did not attend the 1706-7 session of the House, and on 9 Dec. 1706 he registered his proxy with Bishop Talbot. Despite his absence, the following spring he was involved in the project to build a new church in Birmingham which required an act of Parliament and was promoted by Baron Digby, among others. On 2 Mar. 1707 Hough proposed William Colemore^‡ (former member for Warwick) to Sir John Mordaunt^‡, 5th bt. as an additional commissioners for the project on the grounds that Colemore’s close involvement in the rebuilding of Warwick following the 1694 fire had ‘given him a good deal of experience in the building and contriving of a church and he is upon all accounts a very fit person to be advised with and entrusted in this affair’. WCRO, Mordaunt of Walton Hall, CR1368 iii/63; HP Commons, 1690-1715, iii. 647. However, Somers appeared to have reservations about the bill, particularly over the make-up of the commission. Hough hoped to remove Somers’ ‘scruples’ in the Birmingham matter by appointing as commissioners ‘persons of the best quality and best character’ rather than mere townsmen. Significantly, Hough had heard that opponents of the bill were saying ‘that the bishop was undoubtedly against the bill otherwise Lord Somers would not have been the person to oppose it’. He duly sent up to Somers a list of commissioners on 8 Mar., ready for the committee proceedings on the bill following the second reading on 11 March Surr. Hist. Cent., Somers mss 371/14/D/16, 19. The bill was read for the first time in the Lords on 19 Mar., but ran out of time following a failed attempt on 3 Apr. to waive the standing orders relating private bills and was lost with the prorogation on the 8th. Hough’s religious stance may perhaps be summed up by his comment in a letter of 12 Apr. that ‘one cannot well treat the Reformed [churches] abroad with too much tenderness, or the Dissenters at home with too much plainness.’ Wilmot, Life of Hough, 148.

Hough did not attend the short session of late April 1707. He arrived at the House one week into the October 1707 session, attended 41 per cent of sittings and was named to 16 select committees. On 9 Dec. he was ordered to preach a fast and humiliation sermon on 14 January. He duly preached before the Lords on Psalm 75 when it was noted that ‘most of the lords of North Britain were present’. He attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth on 26 Dec. 1707 and on 29 Jan. 1708 dined with Charles Montagu, Baron Halifax, together Sunderland, Somers and Bishops Moore and Nicolson. The following month there was further interaction between Somers, Nicolson and Hough, possibly relating to Dr. Hugh Todd, one of the Carlisle prebendaries. Nicolson, London Diaries, 442, 437, 446, 457; Worcs. RO, Hampton (Pakington) mss, 705:349/4739/1(i)/5; LPL, ms 1770, f. 54. Hough attended the House on the last day of the session on 1 Apr. 1708. In about May 1708, Hough was identified as a Whig on a printed list marked with party classifications.

Hough was in London before the opening of the 1708 Parliament. Having missed a visit from Wake on 11 Nov., together with John Evans, bishop of Bangor, they met at Wake’s house on the 14th to discuss the approaching Convocation. LPL, ms 1770, f. 68v. Hough attended the House on 16 Nov. for the first day of the new Parliament and thereafter attended one third of sittings. He was named to nine select committees as well as to the standing committee for privileges. By December 1708, Nottingham considered Hough to be of sufficient influence with the queen to suggest that he, together with Sharp and Moore, could second Rochester in a direct approach to persuade her that the bills for abrogating the sacramental Test and for a general naturalization were prejudicial to the Church and the Protestant religion. Leics. RO, Finch mss (G7) Box 4950, bundle 23, f. 77. On 21 Jan. 1709 Hough opposed the voting rights of Scottish peers in the election of Scottish representative peers if they possessed a British title. As a telling indication of his continuing interest in affairs at Oxford, the same day he approached Wake about petitioning the provost of Oriel for a fellowship for one of the Digbys’ kinsmen. LPL, ms 1770, f. 73. He dined at Lambeth on 7 Feb. with Nicolson and White Kennett^†, the future bishop of Peterborough. On 15 Mar. the House gave a second reading to the general naturalization bill, when Hough joined with Tenison, Burnet, Moore, Cumberland and Charles Trimnell, bishop of Norwich, against the wording of a clause proposed by the Tory William Dawes, bishop of Chester; he favoured the retention of the words ‘some Protestant Reformed congregation’ and was against their replacement with the phrase ‘parochial church’. On 22 Mar. Hough voted with the court (opposing the motion) in the division on the bill for improving the Union, allowing those accused of treason access to a list of witnesses five days before their trial. Nicolson, London Diaries, 476, 485-6, 488; LPL, ms 1770, f. 77. On 25 Mar. he voted in company with Somers, Sunderland, and Bishops Trelawny, Evans, and Trimnell against an adjournment of the committee of the whole on the bill, intended to enable Scottish marriage settlements to be considered more fully. Nicolson, London Diaries, 489. On 24 Mar. Hough had reported from the committee on a new Birmingham Church bill which had been brought up from the Commons on the 17th. This time the bill passed without amendment. He attended until two days before the prorogation of 21 April.

Hough was at Westminster on 15 Nov. 1709 for the first day of the new session, confounding a report made by Thomas Manningham, bishop of Chichester, at the beginning of the month that Hough was ‘much afraid’ of smallpox at the time and consequently afraid to travel. He attended 40 per cent of sittings, and was named to 17 select committees as well as the standing committees for privileges and the journal. On the first day he was ordered to preach before the House on 22 November. He delivered a rousingly patriotic thanksgiving sermon before the Lords in Westminster Abbey, in which he attacked the continuing ‘spiritual bondage’ of those governed by the Church of Rome and praised England’s deliverance by Providence. J. Hough, A Sermon Preach’d before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in the Abby Church at Westminster, on the 22d of November, 1709. Being the thanksgiving-day (1709). Hough participated in a ‘long conference’ on 2 Jan. 1710 at Lambeth ‘about the present state of affairs’. On 24 Jan. he accompanied Wake and a number of other peers and bishops to Sunderland’s house where they discussed the following day’s business on the Sacheverell trial. LPL, ms 1770, ff. 90-91. Hough was listed as present in the House during the trial in Westminster Hall, but was absent between 14 and 27 Mar., thereby missing the divisions on Sacheverell’s guilt and his subsequent punishment. On 4 Apr. Wake recorded that he went to the House with Hough and William Fleetwood, bishop of St Asaph, where they ‘sat upon the booksellers’ bill’. He attended six prorogations of 18 Apr., 16 May, 5 June, 4 July, 18 July, 1 Aug. prior to the dissolution in September. LPL, ms 1770, f. 94.

Hough was one of few bishops in town in the first of half of October 1710. Christ Church, Oxf. Wake mss 17, f. 267. By then he had been assessed by Robert Harley, the future earl of Oxford, as a likely opponent of his new ministry. On 11 Nov. 1710, Hough attended a meeting at Lambeth with Bishops Wake, Evans, Moore, and Fleetwood. LPL, ms 1770, f. 100v. He attended the new session of Parliament on 28 Nov. and thereafter attended nearly 22 per cent of sittings, was named to four select committees and to the committee for privileges. He absented himself from the traditional St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth on account of his wife’s illness, telling Nicolson that he was ‘in dread of a rheumatism’. Nicolson, London Diaries, 525-6. He was nevertheless in better health than Archbishop Tenison whose proxy he received on 4 Jan. 1711. On 11 Jan. Hough protested against the resolution to reject the petitions of Henry de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], concerning the war in Spain, and against the resolution on the causes of the defeat at Almanza. The following day he subscribed a further protest against the censure of those ministers who had approved the military offensive in Spain. Lady Clavering noted his support for the censured Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope^†, the future Earl Stanhope, in a letter penned on 16 January. Clavering Corresp. ed. H.T. Dickinson (Surtees Soc. clxxviii), 108. On 28 Jan. he attended Ely House for a meeting on Convocation matters with Somers, William Cowper, Baron Cowper, Moore, Trimnell and Wake; he continued to be heavily involved in Convocation business throughout the spring. LPL, ms 1770 (Wake diary), ff. 104, 106; Sykes, William Wake, i. 126-8, 130-3. On 3 Feb. he twice registered protests: one against a resolution that regiments in the Spanish establishment at the time of Almanza had been insufficiently supplied and another against a resolution that a failure of military resources amounted to ministerial neglect. He was listed as present on 1 Mar. when the House debated Greenshields’ appeal, and it was reported that ‘all the bishops went one way in his [Greenshields’] favour’. NLS, Advocates mss, Wodrow pprs. letters Quarto V, f. 148. He last attended on 15 Mar. 1711 and on 23 Apr. he registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Evans.

Hough was back in London by the end of October 1711 and on 12 Nov. he visited Wake with Talbot, Trimnell and Charles Mordaunt, 3rd earl of Peterborough; after visiting Tenison at Lambeth they asked Wake to meet them the following day at the House when Parliament was prorogued. LPL, ms 1770, f. 113. Hough took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711 after which he was present on 41 per cent of sittings. He was named to eight select committees and to the standing committees for privileges and the journal. Presumably he supported including ‘No Peace without Spain’ in the address to the queen, because on the 8th he was listed as an opponent of those court supporters who sought to avoid presenting the address so amended with that clause. On 19 Dec. he was noted as a likely opponent in the peerage case of James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and the following day duly voted in favour of barring Scots peers from sitting in the House by right of a British title created after the Union. Hough was in the House for the resumption of business on 2 Jan. 1712, and was one of 11 (out of 15 bishops present) who voted with the Whigs against a further adjournment until the 14th. Brit. Pols. 400, 517 n.62. Three days after the debate, he dined at the Chelsea home of Bishop Trelawny with Bishops Burnet, Moore, Talbot, Evans and Trimnell. On 19 Jan. he took time out from his parliamentaty duties to visit the impressive library and museum in the home of Sir Hans Sloane in Bloomsbury Square. Nicolson, London Diaries, 576, 578, 580, 699-700. Sloane was to prove his effectiveness as a physician in July 1712 when curing Hough’s ‘nearest relation in blood’, his wife’s nephew. Sloane 4043, f. 62. On Easter Monday, he preached at St Bride’s before the mayor and aldermen. J. Hough, A Sermon Preach’d at St Bride’s ... on Monday in Easter Week, 1712 (1712). On 26 Feb., Hough voted against the Commons’ amendment to the Scottish episcopal (toleration) communion bill. Bodl. Ballard 36, f. 122. He may have quit town briefly at the end of the month as Ralph Bridges reported to Trumbull on 3 Mar. that he was then ‘absent from town and above 100 miles off’. Add. 72495, ff. 128-9. If this was so, he had returned by 4 Mar. when he was again noted on the attendance list. Edmund Gibson^†, the future bishop of London, noted that either Hough or Moore had joined Bishops Burnet, Trimnell and Fleetwood in voting on 12 Apr. against the passage of the bill restoring patrons to their ancient rights of presentation in Scotland (although neither of them was listed as present on that day). Bodl. ms Add. A. 269, p. 9. On 20 Apr. Hough received the proxy of Bishop Fowler (vacated 25 May) and on 26 May he entered his own proxy in favour of Bishop Fleetwood. Hough attended the session for the last time on 24 May 1712 and missed the last four weeks of business.

Hough was expected back in town by the middle of October 1712 and he proceeded to attend the prorogations on 6 Nov. 1712, 13 Jan., 3 Feb. and 17 Mar. 1713. Christ Church Oxf. Wake 17, ff. 340-1. He returned to the House for the first day of the following session on 9 Apr. 1713. He attended only 15 per cent of sittings but was named to two select committees and to the standing committees for privileges and the Journal. During the debate on the motion to dissolve the Union with Scotland on 1 June, it was reported that Hough ‘went out with another proxy’, thereby avoiding the substantive question, although, in effect, he merely ensured that the Whigs were not powerful enough to defeat a Tory motion (on the previous question) that the motion be put and then defeated. Bodl. Carte 211, ff. 135-6. Around 13 June Oxford included Hough among his estimate as an opponent of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He last attended on 8 June, whereupon he decamped back to his diocese.

Hough was reported by Gibson (who was marshalling episcopal forces for Archbishop Tenison) on 3 Oct. 1713 to be coming up in time for the forthcoming opening of Parliament, scheduled for 12 November. Bodl. Add. A. 269, pp. 25-26. He attended the prorogation of 10 December. On 7 Feb. 1714, Gibson wrote to Tenison to report the opinion of Bishops Trimnell and Wake that ‘three in the commission (viz. Winchester, Lichfield and Ely) and no more, will be least liable to exception, as being seniors’, as acting in Convocation in the absence of the archbishop. Christ Church Oxf. Wake 6, ff. 167-8. Hough attended the House on the second day of the session, 18 Feb., duly taking the oaths, but was then absent until 2 Mar. and attended only four days that month. In all he attended one quarter of all sittings, and was named to the committee for privileges as well as three select committees. As he was present on 5 Apr. it is likely that he joined all but three of his episcopal brethren (all courtiers) in voting against the motion that the Protestant Succession was not in danger under her majesty’s government. Similarly, on the 13th when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to an address on the danger from the Pretender, it was noted that all but two of the bishops had opposed the ministry’s more general address of thanks, and Hough was listed as present. EHR, l. 463-4. On 16 Apr. he received the proxy of Bishop Moore. Hough then attended the House for the final time that session on 11 May. Six days later he registered his proxy with Moore (who resumed his place on 2 June). On the end of May and the beginning of June 1714, Nottingham forecast that Hough would be a certain opponent of the schism bill. The vote of 11 June to extend the bill to Ireland was carried by only one vote, with Hough’s proxy being used to oppose the motion. Nicolson, London Diaries, 612-13. His proxy was again used on 15 June to oppose the bill. Add. 70070, newsletter, 15 June 1714. By July, Hough was in residence at Eccleshall dealing with diocesan business. Christ Church Oxf. Wake 4, f. 185. He failed to return for the brief session of August 1714 that met in the wake of the queen’s death.

Hough continued to take an active interest in secular, court and ecclesiastical politics under the new regime. In 1717, he was translated to Worcester, where he remained until his death. He died ‘very sedately’ at Hartlebury on 8 May 1743,his death ‘occasioned by a cold, in venturing abroad during the severe north-east wind’, and only four days after penning a letter to Gibson. [R. Smalbroke], Some account of the Right Reverend Dr John Hough, late bishop of Worcester (1743), 18; Macray, ‘Table-talk’, 401; Wilmot, Life of Hough, 89, 91. Hough was buried next to his wife in the Lady Chapel of Worcester Cathedral. Russell, Memoir, xxix; Eaton, Concise Hist. of Worcester, 130. In his will, he bequeathed his title in two leases in Wirral and Cheshire from the bishop of Lichfield to his maternal kinsman Thomas Byrche of Leacroft, Staffordshire. Hough also gave £20 a year towards the completion of Thomas Carte’s history of England and £100 to the Georgia Satsburghers. The imposing monument erected by his heir included a bas-relief by Roubilliac depicting Hough challenging the sentence of the commissioners in the Magdalen College affair. It remained the political act for which he was most remembered and for which subsequent generations of historians would laud his display of ‘manly and patriotic virtue’. The Art of Forgetting ed. A. Forty and S. Kuchler, 102-3; Russell, Memoir, p. xxvi.